Once again, the Japanese tax office has issued its annual list of top taxpayers for the previous year. Not surprisingly, it reflects the continuing economic slump, with a contraction in the amounts paid. What's more, six of the top 100 taxpayers are Wall Street bankers -- and five of them are foreigners. Only one executive from the four main financial groups (Mitsui Sumitomo) made it into the top 100.
Heading the list of the top 10 taxpaying authors for the fifth year in a row was Kyotaro Nishimura, one of six mystery writers who made the list. The other five were Miyuki Miyabe, Yasuo Uchida, Jiro Akagawa, Kenzo Kitakata and Keigo Tono. Haruki Murakami returned to the list thanks to "Kafka on the Shore," his hit novel about a teenage boy. But his new translation of J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" is also attracting much attention this year.
Coming in at No. 7 and No. 8 were two writers of women's fiction -- Kaori Ekuni and Kei Yuikawa -- the latter of whom won the Naoki Literary Prize last year. Rounding out the list at No. 10 was Fuyumi Ono, whose fantasy book series "Twelve Kingdoms" became a popular animated show on NHK and spawned several comic books, audio books, DVDs, two video games and several CDs of theme music.